Phoning It In

I was thinking of the phrase "phoning it in" when I left my camera gear in the car to go check on the trail cameras, but I brought my smartphone just in case. "Phoning it in" means doing something with less care and effort that you might otherwise use. But I had an excuse other than laziness since I was planning to do some mushroom-hunting after checking on the trail cams. If I have my camera backpack on, I have nowhere to put any mushrooms I might find (for the table, that is). 

As luck would have it, I came across the scene above and kinda wished I'd had my Nikon with me. The trees and rocks were showing off their full winter jackets of moss, and a universe of water droplets on the leaves in the trees above was sparkling in the morning sunshine. It almost took my breath away when I walked up on the scene, whose layered depths are definitely lost in translation to 2D.

I found this foil balloon in some nearby branches. 

Too bad I couldn't find a better subject to include with the nice light striking the madrones.

The Mt. Tam folks are still busy chopping down Douglas fir trees along the edges of meadows. The oaks are left alone, but without a little judicious gardening, the firs would eventually crowd out the increasingly rare grasslands. There was a crew working out along Bolinas Ridge on Saturday, way north near the McKennan Trail but on the east-facing slope. It looks very different out there than when I last saw it, very much more open.

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Morning Mist

I started to leave the house without my camera gear since I was only thinking about checking up on the trail cams, but when I pulled out of the garage and saw there was still some weather coming through I went back up to get it. 

Although I stopped at the usual location at Sunset Point, I don't think I've ever photographed this scene before. I was drawn by the flat yet bright quality of the dispersed light on the misty landscape. It's usually much darker and duller if it's overcast, and if it's clear it's streaked by sunshine. My attention also wasn't particularly drawn to the usual view of the San Francisco skyline because there wasn't any -- view, that is. It was almost completely socked in. So I had a moment to contemplate other scenes. 

Eventually it did begin to clear. I began to notice the calls of acorn woodpeckers at this point and couldn't recall if they had only just started as the sun came out, or if I simply hadn't noticed them before.

But even as it cleared, you still couldn't really make out the city through the bright, hazy sunlight.

Meanwhile, from the same location, I was inspired by some recent impressionistic photos by Jackie Sones (on The Natural History of Bodega Head blog).

Even when the view to the east was still full of clouds, the sun did break through the cracks here and there, lighting up a clear blue sky to the west.

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Foxy Woods

It's pretty rare for the cams to record a gray fox while the day is still bright enough to capture a color image.

It's also rare that a fox will stop long enough for the cam to capture a clean, sharp image.

Although there was this one main game trail, the area was crisscrossed by several other smaller trails that were also used by both deer and fox. This fox is on the main trail now but will take a detour, only to cross it later, as shown in the next shot.

The main trail goes up to the left of the big Douglas fir, but the fox took a different route. The fox(es) were caught coming and going off the right side of the frame several times. Next time I go up I might move a cam or two to try to catch them in the detour.

This time the fox stays on the main trail until it passes the large Doug fir. Here it's 9:12 p.m.

And here, at 9:13 p.m., we have the same fox. You can even see that the video lights from Cam #2 (which remain on for a specified length of time) are still on in the background. 

Although I synchronized the cams to my wristwatch, they are synced to the minute, not the second; the video only records for 20 seconds.

This frame looks a lot like the next one, but I believe these are two different foxes. One passes at 6:40 p.m., and the next capture is at 6:46 p.m.

If these are a paired-up male and female, I might catch fox kits here in the future. And just because I want to share a couple more trail-cam shots that don't have a theme of their own, I bring you...

...the Mini-Buck...

...a Mini-Buck in pretty light...

...and a passing hobo!

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Antlers Aweigh!

I put four cams out in the same general area in late December to get a sense of which trails the animals were using. I'm not talking about hiking trails, but game trails, although a pair of intrepid off-trail hikers did flash a peace sign at one of the cams. 

I was surprised by how frequently the trails were used by presumably the same few deer. The SD cards recorded so many frames I thought for sure there would be a lot of wind-blown branches, or birds or squirrels, but it was almost all deer, and also several gray fox, with a few varied thrush, gray squirrels, and a tree-climbing mouse thrown in.

The buck above passed through on the afternoon of Jan. 9 while there was a bit of water on the lens. (BTW, this is Cam #2 as shown by the 0002 in the lower right of the info band). 

And the very next day...

...he was down one antler! I'm pretty sure it's the same buck. He's even passing by within a half-hour of the previous day's time: 1:48 p.m. vs. 1:18 p.m. 

I read that a buck's antlers will drop when their post-rut testosterone levels drop. 

This wasn't the only buck who lost a new year's antler...

...except this guy lost the antler on the other side of his head.

Here's the same guy being caught by Cam. #3 a couple minutes later. I believe this is the same buck that was caught, with his antlers still intact, in the shot below.

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Winter Wonderland

Thanks, Mt. Tam

I think in the last ten years I have never seen this kind of red coloration in acorns before. I believe the heart-shaped chunks were munched by a deer. I wish I knew what was up with the red color. Is it oxidized tannin? My old 1992 edition of Oaks of California (pre-sudden oak death; it's not mentioned once in the whole book) says indigenous people would remove the reddish papery skin when preparing acorn meal, so I guess it isn't that unusual, although I don't believe I came across any such skin the one time I processed acorns myself. Anyway, I was also interested to see that some of the acorns were beginning to sprout while they were still attached to the tree.

Acorn, Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia)

Passing Cloud

Madrone Berry & White Feather

Half-Eaten Madrone Berry 

(I could hear a flock of band-tailed pigeons rustling around in the overstory). 

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Thank-you Mt. Tamalpais for a great decade of exploration, inspiration, and refuge.

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Soak Up The Sun

I was about to drive home when I spotted a clump of grass down the way that I was pretty sure hadn't been there before. It's nearly 2020 and my eyesight is 20/Crappy, so I spied the clump through 10X binoculars and resolved it into a Blacktailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus). Here the hare is soaking up the warm rays of a late-morning's winter sunshine along Bolinas Ridge. 

That's quite a tear in your fabulous listening appendage, my friend. I guess I'll wish you a Happy New Ear!

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Still Lifes With Christmasberry

Oak Leaf, Acorn Shell & Christmasberry

Shelf Fungus with Christmasberries, Lichen & Moss

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Oyster Gills

I'd just set out four trail cameras in a new area when I lucked into a small flush of Oyster Mushrooms on a decaying, but still standing, oak trunk. As I photographed their gills I was impressed by how fresh and debris-free they looked. (Click on any image to view it larger.)

But when I got the images home and viewed them on my monitor I cursed the stray strand of miscellaneous nature fragment that I hadn't noticed in the field.

I thought it was a superfine monofilament of lichen until I zoomed in and saw that it was a dewy strand of spider silk.

I also failed to notice the fungus crawlies. I'm going to guess this is a mite since it appears to have six legs and something like palps, but I poked around Google and Google Scholar a little bit without finding another picture like this guy. How does such a tiny creature ever find its way to the gills of a mushroom?!

Pleurotus ostreatus

One thing I learned as I was poking around for information on the crawlies is that oyster mushrooms don't just feed on wood. They also parasitize, i.e., eat, nematodes. To paraphrase The Big Lebowski: Sometimes the nematode eats the fungus. Sometimes the fungus eats the nematode. 

Although some fungi use constricting loops of hyphae to trap nematodes, and others use adhesive hyphae, the oyster mushroom poisons its prey. As we read here: 

"When grown in a nitrogen-poor environment like wood, P. ostreatus will produce a toxin on aerial hyphae. Instead of diffusing into the environment, the toxin remains as a droplet on the hyphae. In this manner, the toxin remains undetected by the unfortunate nematode until contact is made; the nematode is promptly paralyzed by the toxin. Hyphae will then colonize the nematode, and eventually digest it."

[UPDATE]

Interesting story about this in the New York Times (Jan. 2023)

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Atmospherics

Watch on YouTube

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At The Stumps

Gray Fox

Western Gray Squirrel

Raccoon

Blacktail Deer

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Nature's Gifts

Click Image to View Larger

I like a well-ordered, even minimalist image as much as the next guy, but I also like the rumble-tumble of the bumble-scrumble—nature in all her random mathematical chaos. Especially when the image includes flowing water and rocks being colonized by moss.  

I also liked the jaggy emerald forest of the moss and ferns contrasted with the smooth softness of supple water and solid stone.

Back in the dry months I used to enjoy sitting as still as possible on these rocks where I'd face downstream into a spacious glade created by the high canopy of trees. There was a small pool of water that survived at the base of the dry rocks, and birds would land practically at my feet to drink and bathe. 

Click Image to View Larger

Once again I wasn't finding any large fleshy fungi, just little fellas like this weather-worn trio of (I believe) Mycena maculata. After taking a series of photos to be stitched into this single image later on, I reflected on the fact that the forest is my hunting ground, but the quarry is aesthetic sustenance. I get virtually all my food, clothing and shelter through our system of worldwide industrial trade, and I spend almost all my time in a man-made landscape. The aesthetic sustenance I get from my too-brief excursions into nature is much more substantial than simply acquiring a photograph.

Which reminds me that shinrin-yoku, or Japanese forest bathing, is having a moment. I even saw a book about it on the "new non-fiction" shelves at Green Apple the other day. It's hypothesized that the molecules floating in the forest atmosphere have a beneficial effect on us, and savvy marketers will gladly sell us a bottle of essential oils to bring some of forest bathing's benefits into our own home.

Shinrin-yoku is another "ecosystem service" provided freely by nature. Gifts such as clean air and fresh water literally make our lives possible, and our lives are degraded in proportion to how much we degrade those gifts.

Nature is the gift-giver par excellence, the substrate of everything we are and the original giver of life to our small blue planet, our twirling mote in the immensity of space. Nature says Merry Christmas to us every day. 

Here's hoping we learn, very soon, to take better care of what she gives us.

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Solstice Sunrise

Click on Image to View Larger

You know you're spoiled rotten when you call a sunrise like this ... a dud! As I looked out the bedroom window this morning I could just make out the waning crescent moon, nearly half-way across the sky, shining dimly through a layer of cloud. I sensed that a colorful sunrise might not be in the cards, or in the clouds, but I was already out from under the covers, maybe twenty-seven-percent awake, and it was just after 6 a.m. Which meant I had about 20 minutes to get dressed, get my gear together, make some coffee, toast a bagel, and get going in time to reach the Mt. Tam gate when it would open at 7 a.m.

I decided to go for it, but I didn't have my hopes up. I was on the road by 6:23 and had great traffic karma all the way up, which made me a tad early. I was actually first in line at about 6:55, and by the time the slightly tardy ranger opened the gate a little past 7, there were four cars behind me. 

I'd seen a deep crimson bar on the horizon earlier which had gotten my hopes up a little bit, but instead of blossoming into a Mt. Tam Winter Wonder Spectacle of a sunrise, the color had likely faded even before the gate opened.

Nevertheless, I am lucky and blessed to have a place like this to enjoy on a Saturday morning. A pair of red-tailed hawks called to each other as they sewed flight lines across the sky, surfing the strong, chilly winds with nary a wingbeat. I needed a jacket as I started down the Cataract Trail, but I had to take it off soon after I entered the woods and got out of the wind. The creek was flowing clear and with authority, but not rushing. The day is short. I'll savor it while it lasts.

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Roots

Trace your roots back far enough and you finally reach... fungi. It's said that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Though to be fair, not by much. But if you were worried that you might be descended from apes, you can relax. You are actually descended from some kind of proto-fungal flagellate. And of course, before that you were descended from a broad scattering of elements formed in exploding stars.

Scientists have even traced the unfolding of our universe pretty much back to its birth, even to before light came into existence. Somehow, the kernel of what we are today existed even way back then.

As for the mother that birthed that magic kernel, I'm sorry but that is not just unknown but unknowable. I'd like to invent a story to fill in the gaps of how the universe came into being and how a bunch of elements formed in exploding stars came to life, but if I did, it would involve bobcats and coyotes and toyon berries because those are things I kind of understand. So instead of inventing a story like I did in my last post, I'm just going to go along with Iris DeMent and let the mystery be.

I'd hoped to find some nice fruitings of large fungi last weekend, but all I could find were variously sized troops of little Mycena species. But with any luck, Santa will soon bring the Sleeping Maiden a nice variety of chanterelles and things.

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Three-Toed Trunkasaurus

I'd just clomped across a small wooden footbridge after consulting with a bobcat about the proper way to dispose of gopher guts when out of the corner of my eye I saw a sextet of elves marching to the beat of a clapping newt. 

"Watch out! Watch out!" they cried from beneath a flap of flossy moss. "The three-toed trunkasaurus heard your noisy clomping and is coming to eat you up!" 

"Nonsense," I retorted as I snorted in derisive nomenclature. "I have it on good authority—from Granny Gray Fox herself—that in the month of December, T3 eats nothing but chocolate-covered rose hips, and nothing or anything else!"

"Fargenswargen!" said the elves with one voice.

A chill went down my spine.

A creaking of wood did I hear overhead, and a swaying of branch so large that my heartbeat fell into rhythm with the newts: a-CLUMP-a-thumpa, CLUMP-aBOOP-awhumpa. And so on, for what seemed like a few seconds or a few days. I can't be sure. All my certitudes have turned to platitudes, and moss grows upon my knees.

Said I, "I see thee, T3," and a toothy grin did I shine. "Would you like to try my chocolate-covered rose hips? They are fresh from South Lonesome Pine!"

A scarier moment I've never had, not in wood, nor dell, nor hydrothermal vent. But once again, as again and before, I stood on my ground, shouted "Fargenswargen!" with the elves, and made myself  everlasting beneath green Yggdrasil, the Axis of the World—the friend of elves, spelunkers, and footbridge clunkers, of bobcats and foxes, of mosses and lichens—and even of three-toed trunkasauruses.

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